Archive of Our Own ^beta

daisydiversions: Hello, and welcome to The Weather Report, a behind-the-scenes podcast about the making of the Gusu Summer Camp Dating Sim, Expanded Edition.

daisydiversions: I'm Daisy Diversions, and today I'm joined by Nonplussed, the Lead Developer and Lead Writer, and the artist,

Nonplussed: Hello!

daisydiversions: and the artist who worked on the game.

daisydiversions: The forecast for today's episode is a downpour of everything art with a chance of scattered yapping likely. Gusty winds of graphic design passion are expected later in the episode, and beware of riptides that will be caused by all of my feelings about fonts.

daisydiversions: Before we get started with my questions for you all about the art in this game, will you all tell the listeners more about your role related to art and the visual experience?

daisydiversions: Nonplussed, let's start with you.

Nonplussed: Great! So art-wise, I was in charge of the background art, and in the first game I did UI, thankfully in the second game, I have passed on the UI to somebody more talented than me, and I also did the little cursors.

daisydiversions: Great.

daisydiversions: And Carrie, can you go next?

carriecmoney: Yes.

carriecmoney: I'm Carrie C. Money. I did all of the sprite art for the game. All the character work. When you're actually playing it.

daisydiversions: Lily?

ImpureLily: Hi! I did the ending splash art, and, I don’t know what you’d call it. The text box?

daisydiversions: Yeah, yeah, yeah, the dialogue box.

ImpureLily: The banner thing.

daisydiversions: Mm-hmm.

daisydiversions: And then Gav, would you finish us off?

Gavilan: Hi, I’m Gav! I did the UI, so all of the little bits– the banner, the approvals page. That sot of thing.

daisydiversions: Great.

Nonplussed: I also want to point out that Carrie and Lily both did the cover art for our game.

daisydiversions: Yeah.

carriecmoney: Oh, yeah. I did do that!

ImpureLily: Yeah, I did that!

carriecmoney: I did the cover art for the first round and then Lily did the cover art for the DLC.

ImpureLily: Yes.

daisydiversions: And then I did a little bit of graphic design here and there, including the mini guide, and then I helped out with some of the font selection.

daisydiversions: So let's get started.

daisydiversions: So, nonplussed, as the person who was spearheading the development of this game from the beginning, when you were starting from a blank slate, how did you decide what artistic elements you wanted to include in the first version of the game, and how did that kind of shift as to what you wanted to add in the expanded edition?

Nonplussed: So, when we first started and it was just the podficcers and me, there was only text and the background art to have something to scroll the text on, so that was where we started off with. But, you know, I've played dating sims before and I know how beautiful they can look, so I think once we were almost done with the writing, I was like, “I’d really like an artist to do at least the character art, like the sprites,” and found Carrie to do that, which was amazing.

Nonplussed: And I think when we were first discussing it, me and Carrie, we were saying background, character sprites, ideally do something cute with UI, and some splash art.

Nonplussed: And in the first game, we only managed to get the character sprites, because the time was really short, but like I'm so glad, and then in the expanded, we just did all the rest of that.

Nonplussed: So yeah, just kind of what I've seen done in dating sims, I guess.

daisydiversions: Okay, great.

daisydiversions: And so for Carrie, from your perspective, how did you find out about this dating sim? What were your thoughts on this crazy project? And, you know, why did you decide to get involved?

carriecmoney: Yeah.

carriecmoney: Nonplussed put out a call into one of our shared servers. Like, “I'm looking to do the art for or I'm looking to get an artist to help out with the game.” And I have done, like, casually, like in various little college hackathons or whatever. I've done art for smaller versions of these kinds of games before.

carriecmoney: And so I was like, yeah, I can do that. I draw it pretty quickly. I hope you're okay with me moving across the country halfway through this project. But as long as you're cool with that kind of timeline, I think I can chunk that out.

carriecmoney: And I do like drawing the same guy over and over again. It's fun. And doing that kind of modular work.

carriecmoney: So yeah, as far as like the visual style, like we did work back and forth and I was like, “this is what I think I can do over and over again style wise. Does this work for you?” You know, back and forth like that. Getting some of the technical stuff down, like sizing and things like up.

carriecmoney: But yeah, I'm familiar with the concept of a RenPy game for shoot, since 2011. So…

daisydiversions: Oh, that's so cool.

carriecmoney: yeah, I mean, I'm not like I've spent all 14 years since doing them, but I've seen them done before I knew what went into them.

daisydiversions: I definitely want to hear about other projects you've worked on in the past another time.

Nonplussed: Just to give some context,when Carrie said, “Yes, I will do the art for you,” on day one, the day one of saying yes, day one Carrie gave me like eight sprites.

carriecmoney: That sounds like something I would do.

Nonplussed: So, like, basically all, like how, yeah, just like boom, sprites, like whoa, that's amazing.

Nonplussed: So yeah, and the face we already looked, like the finest versions, because I went back to look in the discord and like the first thing you gave me was Jiang Cheng, like with his

carriecmoney: Yeah.

Nonplussed: like talking, like unimpressed talking face. And it was basically identical to what we've been using since.

carriecmoney: I don't think I've touched up any of them other than make them frown better or things like that. Um, you know, “can you make them look more serious?” That kind of thing.

Nonplussed: But the original stuff that you made, the very first day that you said yes, we've been using, so just amazing work.

carriecmoney: Mm hmm. Yep.

daisydiversions: So, Carrie, one thing that I think is really great about your sprites is that each character has a very distinct vibe from each other, and their personalities really come through well in those expressions. What is your process when creating these characters initially?

carriecmoney: Um, honestly, I've been drawing these guys off and on through the years. So I just kind of have my standard personal faces for how I draw these guys. But there's some, there's some like undertones to it. I think that helped out a lot more too. Like, um, I think some people probably noticed. Um, I used a different like, um, shadow color for each of them. So every character got their own unique little shadow color, uh, for their highlights and all that.

carriecmoney: And so, Jiang Cheng is purple, and Wei Wuxian is a bright red, and Wen Qing is a dark red. All over the place like that.

carriecmoney: Um, and as far as the faces, I honestly just kind of am a very expressive artist. That's one of the things that I'm good at is doing a bunch of different faces and facial expressions and that's another reason why I was like, “yeah I can do that. I can draw a bunch of different the same guy drawn six different faces.”

daisydiversions: Yeah, it's really impressive, and I think it brings a lot of life to the game. So thank you so much for your work on that.

daisydiversions: And so when it came to creating additional sprites for the expansion, you know, what was kind of your mindset? Was there anything specifically you wanted to do or to change going in this time?

carriecmoney: It'd been a year since I looked at them, so when y'all started talking about doing an expansion I was like, “I'm gonna have to remember what I did,” and was like, “oh, I remember,” but I did um do a lot of “let's mine, let's copy this exact one that I did before and change the mouth,” and then honestly the team kind of pushed me more into like hey can you give them hands can you can you um can you actually make them move around a little bit more and so it was good to have you know other people to be like, “no you need to try harder,” but yeah yeah it is um it is fun to have those kinds of things one of the things.

daisydiversions: It wasn’t, “try harder!” It was more just like when you… I think that the one that you had, which the file is called “Jiang Cheng Hands”, but it's kind of this one where he's kind of like throwing his hands up in the air to just be like, “ugh,” right?

daisydiversions: That one is just so expressive. And I felt like when we used it in combination with his normal stance, it just added so much kind of energy to the scene that we were like, can we have more like that, right? So it's just kind of like building on it, right?

carriecmoney: Yeah, it is fun to have those kinds of things.

carriecmoney: One of the things is that I was trying to make them all like the same basic size which is kind of a double-edged sword because I didn't want them to be like the same character to be kind of like going back and forth and up and down like six pixels you know or like I wanted them to stay in the same basic space even when you're just switching like their facial talking but that also meant that they kind of were pretty rigid in like how they were moving around and stuff um and there's only so much like flexibility when it came to like you can only move them so much before it's completely different.

carriecmoney: It's like that animation problem where you see like really choppy animation by beginners because, you know, they're not necessarily good at keeping the fluidity in there and I was trying to mitigate that and they ended up being a little static because of it.

carriecmoney: With the “Hands” one, like, I had to basically completely redraw the entire guy to make him do that, rather than just “let's change the face and some eyebrows.”

daisydiversions: Well, they all came out great.

daisydiversions: So Lily, so you created Splash Art for the game. Misery, who wasn't able to join us today, but, you know, we really miss them, did the mid-game art. And Lily, you did the art for the different endings. Can you tell me more about what that process was like for you?

ImpureLily: How do I explain my brain?

daisydiversions: However you want!

ImpureLily: It was a lot of going over the text from the game of like what the characters are doing at the end and just going off with like, “okay, what would that look like in my mind?” and to kind of make them all a little cohesive and also make it a little easier to draw I had it's like always like their back to them so like you know they're looking up at the sky at the lanterns and it was also a lot of constantly going back and forth looking at the sprites so I can at least match up the style that i'm still developing to look at least cohesive with Carrie’s. It helped a lot of that Carrie shared the brush that I used for the ink, so that helped a lot.

carriecmoney: yes I did my best when I was relearning how to draw the sprites for the DLC to be like, “here are all of the design choices that I made. Here's the layer opacity I used for the shading. And here's the brush that I used and you don't have to use it, but in case you want to here you go.”

ImpureLily: yes it's a good brush and…

carriecmoney: I like that brush it's what I use all the time.

ImpureLily: I also like copied a lot of the I also copied, like, the highlights in the eyes. I did tweak a little bit like how much opacity. Wei Wuxian looked a little off. I don't know what I was doing that was something different from yours, but it just, looked a little like, his robes looked brown, and I was like, “no, that's, no.”

carriecmoney: Sometimes the fun shading color can be fun until natural color and then it's just like, “wait what's going?”

Nonplussed: I super loved it.

Nonplussed: I drew them like, even though the scene was very similar, because you know, as the person who wrote the text, I did want the, the endings when they were at Qixi to not differ too, too much, but like you gave each ship like a different pose that feels so correct for, like, the, you know, the character dynamics. And I thought it was so cool because like, a good, like six out of ten of them or eight out of ten of them. We're just, they are standing there watching the Qixi lanterns. Right?

ImpureLily: I was, like, “okay how do I make this just, not boring,” and I think I was also going back and forth, like, with you guys. And I think it was Wen Qing and Nie Huaisang, like, the pose that they had with Jiang Cheng… you wanted me to swap those out, and, looking back on it… yeah, that was a good choice. I like him holding the lantern with her. That was a good choice.

daisydiversions: Yeah.

Nonplussed: I will also say that I like how in the splashart, you can see that Meng Yao is tiny. I'm very pleased. We can't do that with the sprites.

ImpureLily: Even though it’s based off, that the art style is based off of The Untamed, I went back to like look online to find, like, “okay, but what are the character size differences. Oh, my boy is tiny.” Like, I actually had to tweak it a bit when the three of them were together with Nie Mingjue. Because, I'm just, like, “all right, his head is like… out of the picture to just get them all both in frame. I had to, like, actually tweak Nie Mingjue a bit. “You don't fit. You're too big. And he’s too small.

daisydiversions: Yeah.

daisydiversions: Listen, Meng Yao is just a pocket husband, you know?

carriecmoney: yeah

ImpureLily: What was that meme? Like a little terrier or like a chihuahua?

carriecmoney: A shih tzu.

daisydiversions: Yeah, that’s right.

carriecmoney: A purse dog

daisydiversions: Listen, that's Nonplussed’s chihuahua, right?

Nonplussed: Right!

Nonplussed: So, we couldn't do that with the sprites for, you know, technical reasons. We had to keep them within–

carriecmoney: Yeah, all the sprites are the same height.

daisydivesions: Except for the bush.

Nonplussed: Except for the bush!

carriecmoney: Yes, except for the bush. The bush is much smaller.

ImpureLily: The bush is great.

Nonplussed: With some dating sims, they only ever have, like, one or two characters on screen at the same time. So, you kind of have like a bigger space to work with, but poor Carrie has to work within the constraints of like…. there is one scene where like five or six of them are on screen at the same time. And like, we had to tweak it so that, you know, so that you could see everybody and they can't be too fat, but then they still have to emote. So like, you know, the sprites are really working within a much more of like technical limitations, but it different from the splash art, which is also cool. Yeah.

carriecmoney: Within like the Renpy framework there is like a pixel width and height for the sprites and so there was only so much dramatic hand waving I could do because there's only so wide that the sprites could go.

Nonplussed: It's just, like, I think there are some interesting technical limitations for creating art for a game, right?

carriecmoney: I remember actually when we started off doing this, like, the very first thing that I did… we were still figuring out like how it was going to look and at first I drew all of the hedge… all of the sprites like more head shotty busts. And they cut off where the text box cut off and then and then uh within like a day…

Nonplussed: Yeah.

Gavilan: I remember that.

carriecmoney: Or two… within like a day or two, Non was like, “um, yeah, we're gonna have to extend them all the way down to the bottom because when the text box goes away they're just a floating head” and I'm like, “oh, whoops.”

Gavilan: The struggle of things disappearing in different layers than you thought they would. And it's like, “oh no! You have revealed the thing that I hid behind the box.”

carriecmoney: Yeah, and my art file for, I think, I did Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian first and, so, their art files still have the, uh… I added like extra thing behind it to do the arm extension so that I could go back if I wanted to or whatever I don't know why I did that and didn't just fix it all together but like they're all like multi-layered and then after that the other characters I did afterwards I'd already figured that out and, so, I didn't have to fix things like that but um but yeah um if some of them have an awkward thing around elbow width height that's why.

Gavilan: I remember also there was a moment where we were all like, “wait, can we flip them?” And then we had to redraw them all flipped because otherwise their robes are telling you they're dead.

carriecmoney: Yeah, no, I knew that, um, because of like prior sprite work or whatever, that you do tend to flop the guy back and forth as they are running around or whatever. You know, if you're trying to move them and stuff, so I was, like, “we’re just going to need to go ahead and just make an alternate version of it that's already flipped and I'm gonna have to do the fixings… like, we're just gonna have to fix it um and, do, um…”

Nonplussed: I was kind of thinking, like, maybe for people who might make their own game, like, the decision of: do you want the sprite front facing, like facing the camera? Or Jiang Cheng. So, instead of having a Jiang Cheng sprite, you’d have a little portrait next to the text box, as some dating sims have, for the POV character, so you’d only need to do one version

Nonplussed: Um, but at the same time having like multiple, like, left, right facing gave us so much, um, flexibility to do, like, some interesting stuff with conversations, right? Like, I was able to have Jiang Cheng pace back and forth on the screen. You know, I was like the boys could do like the little thing where they hide behind the text box and, like, move it left and right. That was what we gained by having them looking at each other as opposed to looking front facing. So like, I just think, like, there's all like little details that happen based on like very early, not particularly informed choices we made about like how, how we wanted technically the art to, to be restricted.

daisydiversions: Yeah, there were some good gags in there, right?

Nonplussed: Yeah, exactly. It really only worked because the sprites are side facing.

daisydiversions: Yeah, so it's a trade-off, right?

daisydiversions: Like a little bit more work, but also you can do a little bit more with it.

Nonplussed: Yeah.

daisydiversions: Lily, what was the most challenging piece for you to create?

ImpureLily: Probably the background. I suck at backgrounds… I might be getting a little bit better, so probably just that and getting like the lighting right all around. I actually found, like, a…. I used Clip Studio Paints and I found a brush that does the lanterns, but it just looked weird, so I actually had to trace over what the brush had drew on there, so it like looked cohesive enough, but, yeah, definitely the background this is why with the, uh, the Jiang trio, I was, like, “hey, do you guys got a background I could steal, so I don't like draw anything more please?”

daisydiversions: Yeah, the Caiyi background.

Nonplussed: I will say that your, your, your lantern background is so pretty and I love like…

daisydiversions: Beautiful.

Nonplussed: It’s so smart of you to decide to make them like glimmer.

ImpureLily: Yeah!

Nonplussed: Cause that really adds extra touch.

ImpureLily: Even though I, like, gave you more work to do because like, “I don't know how to do that. Sorry!”

Nonplussed: Ah, it's just, it's, it's so simple to code. Like once I figured it out.

ImpureLily: Oh perfect.

Nonplussed: So like, I'm so glad, but yeah, you gave me like just the two, two pictures to alternate between.

ImpureLily: I thought that Nie Mingjue would honestly be like my biggest struggle because, yeah, I've gotten, I've drawn mostly like Scum Villain artwork so I've gotten like used to, like, guys with long hair and stuff like that. I haven't really drawn anybody with facial hair before and it's, like, “he's gonna look so stupid. This is gonna take forever.” And it's, like, first time: DONE. It's, like, “oh wow, okay. That was a lot easier than I fucking thought. Cool.” And he turned out to be, like, I mentioned before we started recording, but I don't hate him, I don't like him, he's cool. He's there. He's fun. He's not one of my top favorites.

daisydiversions: Nie Mingjue?

ImpureLily: He's my favorite that I drew I just love so much how his, like, hair and everything turned out. I was, like, “okay, I didn’t expect that.” It's, like, the Nie siblings because I also really like how, uh, Nie Huaisang’s pose came out too. Not so much of a fan of like how Jiang Cheng's pose came out in that one because that was, like, one of my first ones I drew so, so get into like the groove of it, but I really like how Nie Huaisang came out.

daisydiversions: Do you think that, do you think that part of the reason that you, you know, do you think you gained an affinity for Nie Mingjue because you also voiced him?

ImpureLily: I was like you know what I know daisy likes my uh joe from Skate voice so I could probably do that for him I was like yeah i'll do. it also was like what five lines god damn I had to re-record that so often i'll save that for the other one but that was a pain of the ass despite the fact that it was like little lines. But I do like the character.

daisydiversions: It was, it was, it was a lot of lines. We'll, we'll talk about it in the other episode, but yeah, no, it's, uh, you did a great job, though. uh, can you tell us about the video you made, Lily?

ImpureLily: Oh, yes, uh, god that week everything is like a fever dream I don't know like what happened I forget like who brought it out what happened how we saw the video which is like the the dumbass trio i'm just like yeah that's them.

Nonplussed: They really are.

ImpureLily: spent like what like an hour maybe not even like just quickly throwing that together I think the ending part was like the most annoying like how do I fade this to advertise the game but no that was hilarious and I had I knew I had to use the bush

daisydiversions: It was great.

ImpureLily: the bush is the like the bush uh sprite I knew I had to incorporate that because it was fantastic oh it was funny when I made it I could have sworn I don't know why you made this up my head that you've made sprites of all three of them uh as bushes and I was like trying to find the files like where the fuck is it like oh no it's just Nie Huaisang dang it

carriecmoney: no I think I actually think I remember the conversation that spawned the bush um because like when we started off um non gave me like a whole list of like all the sprites that they'd already written out cool great awesome um and one of them was like can you draw like you know a Huaisang like or a bush for Huaisang to hide behind like the character sprite to hide behind and I was like what if he's just the bush like he's just gonna be the bush that's too much work we're just gonna draw the bush it was the best one.

Nonplussed: It really was. And it happened like day one as well. It's just like, no, I, I didn't do.

carriecmoney: yea it was one of the first ones yeah um and I had more um so the actual source file for the bush um I had this idea in my head because like I know how this works and that's not how it ended up happening but um I the base bush and the leaves are actually on two different layers so that if you wanted to try to shake it you could shake the leaves instead of like just shaking the whole sprite up and down um and I don't think we ended up doing that but that was an idea it didn't look good enough yeah

Nonplussed: I just took the leaves and it didn't look enough.

Nonplussed: Like Nie Huaisang.

carriecmoney: mm-hmm yeah but I remember that when I went to go make my little icon for this uh endeavor I was like

Nonplussed: Yeah.

Nonplussed: I just put everything together.

carriecmoney: oh yes I should make the bush and then I realized that i'd actually saved the two files of separate pngs you could play around with it and so I needed to I had to make another one so that I could use for my icon for this

Nonplussed: I will say that I almost, because you save the leaves separately. It gave me the idea of like when Nie Huaisang emerges from the bush, would it be really funny to have the leaves kind of attached to his regular character?

daisydiversions: Oh, yeah.

Carriecmoney: oh that would have been funny yeah

Nonplussed: I couldn’t quite make it work with like the character, like storyline, but like, oh, that would have been so funny if it comes out of the bush, like covered in leaves.

daisydiversions: Yeah, I don't think we see Nie Huaisang again in that scene, though, right?

Nonplussed: He hides in the bush if Da Ge comes by right in the ending. Spoiler alert.

ImpureLily: yeah i'd assume people watching or listening uh they've played it i'd hope

Nonplussed: Um, who knows, but in there is a part of the game where Huaisang hides in the bush again, late game. And then he emerges being very sad. Like, no, why, what did, why did, you know, why did you not send Da Ge away? And then like, that would have been a really good moment to have him be like the leaf strewn on the character.

ImpureLily: My icon is literally Da Ge.

Nonplussed: Spoiler.

daisydiversions: So, I mean, I think that that's even funnier if he, like, comes, if Jiang Cheng comes back, Nie Huaisang's covered in leaves, and then Jiang Cheng is still choosing to romance Nie Huaisang while he's covered in leaves.

Nonplussed: The problem I had with that, you know, Huaisang never leaves the screen between that point and the like romance point. So I was like, I can't leave him covered until the end. So then I couldn't put leaves on him.

ImpureLily: I could have added leaves to the splash art in his hair.

carriecmoney: I would have drawn special leaf leaf eye things that would have actually aligned up with right if I had known

ImpureLily: I could’ve added a joke to the splash just have Nie Huaisang off in a bush just off of the corner just like smiling

daisydiversions: It sounds like we need to do a second DLC. Just for the bush. Yeah, the bush. I'm trying to think, you'd have to have some sort of pun. And it'd be, like, the Hedge Edition or something like that. Okay, so, uh, so, Gav, you put in a ton of work on the UX for the Expanded Edition. Um, can you tell us more about the assets that you worked on, and what was your, kind of, overall vision for the experience you were creating?

Gavilan: So I had actually never gotten around to playing the original dating sim the first time you guys made it. But I saw, like, I didn't have time to podfic and I was like, oh, I'm going to have to miss out on this one too. But then you guys were talking about the art and I was like, wait, UI, that looks like Canva graphics. Like I could do that. And so I said, oh, sure, I'll do that. I had no idea what it was that I was signing up to do, really. I never played a game like this. I hadn't played the original. I had no idea. But like you were talking about like text boxes and banners and things. And I'm like, oh, that's the sort of thing I could make. And so then I just started messing around with it. And the thing about it is it's just so many like little bits, right? And so you make all the little bits and then you duplicate the little bits and then you make sure that the little bits are lined up so that when they appear, they appear in the same spot. And then you do all of these things. And Nonplussed was really great about like laying out like you need this one in this size and this with this file file name. And there was a lot of just iterating it and figuring out, well, can it be here? Can it be there? : Can you make it a little bit more red? A little lots of little details. I always really like the scroll effects that I have in Canva. And so I started with those for the approval banners. That was the first thing I made was all the approval banners. And so like I made those with the started with the banners and then figuring out what they would look like. And then I made them and that is where Carrie's like consistent color coding came in handy because I made them so each banner would match the sprite color. And also, you know, the color coding of the untamed where they all have their color coded characters. And they're so helpful when you're just starting out with starting out in your first C-Drama and trying to learn everyone's names.

carriecmoney: work smarter not harder yeah I think that's what I gave him too what did I give him yeah I think i

Gavilan: So color coding all of the things.

Nonplussed: It works for everybody except Meng Yao, who has not a Jin yet. So there's no color.

daisydiversions: Yeah.

Gavilan: I was like, what color do I make? And I ended up with sort of like a bronze because it was like a greenish gold was my idea. I don't know if I achieved it. Because I was like, what do we do with Meng Yao? Because he's not Jin GuangYao, but he's also not Nie.

daisydiversions: Hmm. Yeah.

Gavilan: So, yeah.

carriecmoney: I think I gave him an orange

Gavilan: And then, absolutely.

daisydiversions: And also, there were.

Nonplussed: Despite his. I do love that he has Nie braids in the Sprite. It makes my little Sangsun heart very happy.

carriecmoney: oh yes no he is hardcore in that yeah I gave him an orange um i'm looking at my color scheme now um so like not a gold but more like an actual like almost pure orange yeah I did pick

ImpureLily: yeah but his accessories that he has like has kind of that bronzy so that it works really well

daisydiversions: Yeah.

Nonplussed: Hmm.

Gavilan: Yeah.

carriecmoney: out specific um untamed outfits to use for this that was one of the initial conversations is like which version of this are we doing you know um and it was pretty easy to settle on the untamed because of the characters that are present and all that um and so I was like cool great so we're getting dimples and

Nonplussed: Hmm.

ImpureLily: I panicked and like did I add the dimples like I did I did

Gavilan: Dimples.

carriecmoney: mm-hmm yes absolutely

Nonplussed: Hmm.

daisydiversions: Dimples are the most important character trait. And the thirst for murder. Anyway.

Gavilan: Yes. Tiny dimples thirst for murder.

daisydiversions: Yeah.

Gavilan: And then, there's your A-Yao.

Nonplussed: Yes.

daisydiversions: Yeah, exactly. Oh, and pocket-sized.

carriecmoney: yes very important

Gavilan: Yeah. So, the other thing. The other thing I worked on was the approvals page. And a fun fact about that one is that in my document with all of the UX stuff, pages 35 through 90 are just hearts. Because each half of the heart is duplicated, right?

daisydiversions: Thank you for your work.

Nonplussed: Yes. Oh my gosh.

Gavilan: And they're all in their little spot. And so, I had to take them. And it was just so much copy and pasting. I don't know. I should have timed myself. I don't know how long it took. But it was just so much copy pasting. But, like, I love that sort of stuff. I love the little fiddly details. And just, like, it's like data entry with pictures. It's great.

daisydiversions: Yeah, and it's red hearts, yellow hearts, and black hearts.

Gavilan: But, yeah. So many pages.

ImpureLily: Copy paste saves lives because when I had all of Jiang Cheng’s face just like it's just if you look at it closer it's all just copy paste just copy paste in his face throughout all of them I mean like there

Nonplussed: I couldn’t even tell it Feels like they're so, they're so like full of expression that fits like that scene.

ImpureLily: was like some things that might tweak his eyebrows or like if like his mouth was open or like the tilting but it's just a majority of it's copy paste like the majority of like if you see duplicates and like people most likely it's a copy paste

daisydiversions: No. Oh, yeah, I did not notice at all. Good job.

carriecmoney: yeah a lot of times when I was doing like a art you know talking versus not talking but everything same like I literally just duplicated the layers and then just like erased the mouth and redrew the mouth yeah i'm not i'm not that but i'm not that uh secretive

ImpureLily: nice I noticed your your photoshop like uh file saved my ass like so many times

daisydiversions: yeah there were a couple sprites I ended up tweaking myself, uh, while, while Carrie was on vacation, and I did the same thing. I just copied your own assets, and then, like, put them in, and I was like, yep, we're doing

carriecmoney: mm-hmm they look fantastic no notes

daisydiversions: But, yeah, copy and paste is a real, uh, real, uh, real lifesaver there. Um, but, yeah, everything looked so good that you did, Gav, and, yeah, I think all of those little fiddly bits, like, they really, uh, you know, they just add so much to the game in terms of the customization. It does really feel, like, more, uh, um, I don't say professional, but, I mean, the game looked amazing to me. I don't know. So, um, but it kind of just makes it feel even more loved.

ImpureLily: like Lan Wangji’s hearts how do I fix it that's the fun part you can't because I think you're not allowed

carriecmoney: yeah

daisydiversions: Yeah.

Gavilan: Nope.

carriecmoney: he will never like you

daisydiversions: Yeah, you're not qualified to speak to him.

Nonplussed: Our, like a relationship screen, like for people, if they did want to make a game and want to do something like that, Gav in theory could have done less work, like just given me one heart and then coding wise, like I would like repeat that throughout the screen.

Nonplussed: But like the way Gav does it gives Gav, I feel like so much more control over like the exact positioning.

Nonplussed: Whereas if I had to do it, like I would find like the exact soul to like re duplicate the heart.

Nonplussed: And it would have made my life a lot harder.

Nonplussed: So it's sort of like I offloaded the work again, which thank you.

Gavilan: Yeah.

Gavilan: Because, like, I have, like, a, like, demo screen of it with the hearts filled in.

Gavilan: And so, then I just kind of had to copy just the hearts from that demo and then paste it onto a new page.

Gavilan: And then do that for half one, half two, half three, half four for each set of hearts.

Gavilan: And then repeat for the next set of hearts.

Gavilan: Right.

Gavilan: But I would copy them from the demo so that they would stay in the right location on that.

Gavilan: transparent page.

Nonplussed: And it was just much, to me, it feels like a much more, like you had much more control.

Nonplussed: It's less likely to fuck up with doing it all in art versus doing it in code.

Nonplussed: And like, you could like accidentally fuck up like the actual, like which pixel, you know, you're like out by one pixel, that sort of, that sort of thing.

Gavilan: Yeah.

Gavilan: When it's just built in, it's going to overlay on the exact right spot on the image.

Gavilan: Because I copy and pasted it from the image.

Nonplussed: Exactly.

Gavilan: Yeah.

Gavilan: And then I just copied the sprites and put the sprites.

Gavilan: And I tried out a whole bunch of different little back little frames.

Gavilan: And I ended up with this little circle frame with the banner for the hearts.

Gavilan: Which then, the banner for the hearts actually decided how many hearts I would have.

Gavilan: Because Nonplussed said it could be, like, you know, five to ten, whatever.

Gavilan: So, I did four hearts with halves.

Gavilan: So, I had eight hearts, eight, like, increments.

Gavilan: But that was basically decided by the size of the banner.

Gavilan: And then I used all the little sprites.

Gavilan: And then I used, again, the colors from the sprites to make the frames have different colors.

daisydiversions: The frames were so cute. That was such a good touch.

Gavilan: And then I made the background purple.

Gavilan: Because otherwise, there was not enough Jiang Cheng around.

Gavilan: Everything else, everything had to be purple.

daisydiversions: Yeah.

Gavilan: Because it's his approval screen, right?

Gavilan: So, then everything else was purple.

Gavilan: It was great.

Gavilan: It's like, what color?

Gavilan: Purple.

Gavilan: What color?

Gavilan: Purple.

Gavilan: It's so handy.

Gavilan: It's like when I'm making things for my partner.

carriecmoney: yes

Gavilan: And I'm like, what color?

Gavilan: Red.

Gavilan: What color?

Gavilan: Red.

Gavilan: Because that's his favorite color.

Gavilan: Same thing with Jiang Cheng.

Gavilan: Just, that's easy.

Gavilan: It's going to be purple.

daisydiversions: I did the same thing when I was doing the mini guides and, like, any of the graphics I was

daisydiversions: doing for promo.

daisydiversions: I was just like, yeah, I'm just meant to make everything purple.

Gavilan: It's always good.

daisydiversions: So, um, the, so we also made the, uh, the gallery to kind of collect all of the kind

daisydiversions: of splash art that, uh, that the player got in the game.

daisydiversions: Um, you know, was there anything you guys kind of wanted to say about creating the gallery?

Gavilan: I have absolutely no idea how Nonplussed turned that into a gallery that would, like, reveal things. It’s so cool. I have absolutely no idea how it works.

Gavilan: I just made it.

Gavilan: And it has, like, the little cards.

Gavilan: And then somehow the cards turn into pictures.

Gavilan: I don't know.

Gavilan: It's magic.

Gavilan: It's so cool.

Gavilan: I don't know how any of the coding works.

Nonplussed: There's some very, there's some very fiddly encoding work, the gallery, mainly, not just because we want the art to show up and then disappear, but also because we put in the video in there.

daisydiversions: Yeah.

Nonplussed: And because the video is not art, but a, you know, like a movie file, it needed to do something completely different.

Nonplussed: And then because we also decided, oh, let's put the song, the opening theme song with the lyrics in the gallery that needed a completely different thing to like restart the music track.

Nonplussed: When you clicked on it.

Nonplussed: So just a bunch of fiddly back end code, but like, aside from coding, like art wise, I think what was fun was like deciding how many images per screen.

Nonplussed: Because like Gav, or then like, you know, then when we tried to divide, when we added, when we added cover art.

Nonplussed: So between the original expanded edition, and the final patched version, currently, we have added some cover art, some splash art, which I've added to the gallery.

Nonplussed: But to make fit into like, you know, multiples of four, then I have to put the cover arts, both cover arts in the same, under the same frame, instead of each one having their own frame, just stuff like like that.

Nonplussed: Like the decision between of how many, how many images per gallery screen should is kind of dependent on how many pictures you have to show anyway.

Gavilan: Yeah.

Gavilan: And, like, I think you had, there were 12 originally, I think.

Gavilan: And so my first thought was to do six and two pages with six.

Gavilan: And then I remembered they have to be the 16 by 9 size, like, dimensions, because they have to map.

Gavilan: And I'm like, I can't put six, you know, horizontal rectangles.

Gavilan: I could put six vertical rectangles.

Gavilan: I cannot put six horizontal rectangles on a horizontal rectangle.

Gavilan: That's just not going to work.

Gavilan: And have space for, like, the turning buttons.

Gavilan: Like, I tried.

Gavilan: You could make it work.

Gavilan: But they would be very small.

Gavilan: And there was always, like, a weird bit of space left over.

Gavilan: So I ended up with four.

Gavilan: And then I just picked, like, I was looking for, like, what to put on the cards.

Gavilan: And I saw, like, a little cloud.

Gavilan: And I'm like, that looks like Gusu.

Gavilan: I'll put that on there.

Gavilan: And then the little, yeah, the little page turn buttons are actually not images.

Gavilan: They're in a font.

Gavilan: They're the, what do you call the little brackets on your keyboard?

Gavilan: They're brackets.

Gavilan: Like, the one that's on your period on your keyboard.

Gavilan: That's what they are.

carriecmoney: oh the carrots

Gavilan: Because, carrot, yes.

Gavilan: They're carrots.

Gavilan: They're not images.

Gavilan: Because then I could use the neon effect to make them light up when you clicked on them.

Gavilan: And then, of course, I had to find a graphic to make the little return button also light up when you click on it.

Gavilan: So I had to find a graphic that would make it match the neon effect of the font.

Nonplussed: Yeah, like for for listeners who might be who might not have ever coded a game before any button any interactable button in order for players to know it's interactable, you need a different image anytime they hover over it.

Nonplussed: So that it looks like it's highlighted. And then, you know, if you click it, and it has an effect, then you need a different image.

Nonplussed: So for instance, the return button on the relationship screen, like it's just like a not sorry, not return the turning the the approval banners on and off, right, like it seems like a straightforward thing.

Nonplussed: But like, there's like, four or five images for that alone, because you need like the hover version, and then the like selected version, and then the like hover of the selected version, and then like that sort of thing.

daisydiversions: Hmm.

Nonplussed: So yeah.

Gavilan: Yeah I have four pages for that. So I have help off hover, help off idle, help on hover, and help on idle.

Gavilan: And they're all labeled like that as their file names.

Gavilan: And it's just the same button four times in different colors.

Gavilan: We've got a light blue off and a dark blue off and a light green on and a dark green on.

daisydiversions: Yeah.

daisydiversions: I feel like the naming conventions of images is half the battle as well.

daisydiversions: Right.

Gavilan: Yeah, so, like, Nonplussed made a list.

daisydiversions: So, you know, I know what you're trying to find.

Gavilan: Nonplus made a list of, like, this is what this one should be called and this is what this one should be called.

Gavilan: And I labeled my slides with that in Canva.

daisydiversions: Hmm.

Gavilan: And then when I downloaded the zip file, it would download each PNG as the name of its slide.

Gavilan: So they came with the … only had to do it once.

Gavilan: You didn't have to go in and name all the files because they downloaded as their names.

daisydiversions: Nice.

Gavilan: So that saved both of us a lot of nonsense.

daisydiversions: Oh, great.

daisydiversions: That's actually.

daisydiversions: Um, yeah, I'm going to keep that tucked away forthe future for other projects.

Gavilan: It's so helpful.

Gavilan: It's so helpful.

Gavilan: You don't have to download a bunch of files that say one, two, three, four, five.

Gavilan: This is not helpful.

Gavilan: You can, in fact, name your pages in Canva.

Gavilan: I don't know, remember when I figured that out, but yeah.

daisydiversions: That's, that's incredible.

daisydiversions: We're all learning right now.

daisydiversions: Learning from the master.

Gavilan: There we go.

daisydiversions: So, uh, this is a question for everyone.

daisydiversions: Um, so when you think about all of the pieces that you created for this game, what's the thing

daisydiversions: that you're the most proud of or the piece you're most proud of?

carriecmoney: I feel like I should say the bush but I i feel like i'm contractually obligated to say the bush

daisydiversions: You’re not obligated, You, you can say whatever you want.

daisydiversions: The bush won't bite back.

carriecmoney: I actually really like the cover art um uh I yeah I think the cover art came out well like um

carriecmoney: I did decide um pretty early on I think I tried like half of the background because as um as Non mentioned

carriecmoney: when we were talking about this it was like okay we want sprites we want background we want ui elements

carriecmoney: um and I think I got like halfway through a background and I was just like no

carriecmoney: it's it's gonna look bad you should use

carriecmoney: you should use not my art for the backgrounds

carriecmoney: um but uh they look it does they do integrate with the background art from the uh donghua pretty well

carriecmoney: um and the cover art one came out really nice
Nonplussed: yes it’s so charming, I love it.

daisydiversions: Yeah, it's really good.

Nonplussed: I also love the way its version two and you can see the direct link and it feels … its very cool.

ImpureLily: yeah I do prefer carries but I remember I forget who it was like asking like

ImpureLily: around to make Jiang Cheng more focus

daisydiversions: Oh, that was me.

daisydiversions: Oh, yeah.

daisydiversions: I was like, could you make Jiang Cheng a little bigger?

daisydiversions: Like, it's his game.

ImpureLily: nah I i do prefer carries they're cute they're a little charm to them

Nonplussed: You're both great.

Nonplussed: Both great.

ImpureLily: with carrie's like style with the sprites a little bit better in my opinion

carriecmoney: yeah I like both I mean I did draw the sprites so that would make sense

ImpureLily: no I just mean like the background like just I don't know it just feels better

carriecmoney: yeah I did add like an extra shadow to the characters on the background to make them kind

ImpureLily: Ah, I did not do that.

carriecmoney: blend in a little bit and maybe that's why yeah like I have like a little like a little shadow

carriecmoney: like underneath them um so they um blend in a little bit

ImpureLily: out but then I really really like how Lan Wangji’s face like just the subtle blush and like

ImpureLily: i'm really proud of how he looks and then I probably just because like i'm still learning

daisydiversions: The Wangxian and things really.

ImpureLily: like i'm still developing myself but probably like the last the one I did just I think what Nonplussed asked about

ImpureLily: um getting like the three siblings pretty much like the drunk trio uh together and so I just like

ImpureLily: put that out real quick I really did it hmm was it you who I ran you huh but like that i'm also like

ImpureLily: really proud of that work probably because like hey i'm actually getting better at this

carriecmoney: always a fun experience

ImpureLily: and also we finally got to put her in the game

Carriecmoney: yay yeah um I did I think the original original list of sprites that I had had yanli on it and I got like halfway through doing the sprite and then it was like

carriecmoney: no we kind of wrote her out we got too much going on

carriecmoney: um but I do wish that that's one if we do another dlc

carriecmoney: that's the thing I would push for is I want to be able to have her in there

ImpureLily: mm-hmm it's her turn to start dating

ImpureLily: I did go off a lot with that sketch and like even use like the colors they used for the sketch for her

carriecmoney: mm-hmm I don't think I colored her I think I said the lines but oh yeah

ImpureLily: shadowing like the highlight in her eyes yeah yeah you just like a sketch but it was in a different

ImpureLily: shade of purple than Jiang Cheng so like i'll just use that it's like more of like a softer shade

carriecmoney: I think that's I that's actually just the I had like a background

carriecmoney: stuff so that I could see when i'd accidentally got out of the lines because they're supposed to be

carriecmoney: transparent pngs and i'm not necessarily perfect at coloring inside the lines especially on like the

carriecmoney: zoom in 300 pixel level which you need to be with transparent ones so I put like a really bright

carriecmoney: color underneath it so I could see those kinds of things better and that was just the bright color

carriecmoney: I still have it that's the background color there happens all the time

ImpureLily: yeah no I really like how she turned out like she's finally in the game so I don't know I i really

ImpureLily: like how Lan Wangji turned out and I really like how like the final piece like the the three of them

Nonplussed: Yeah.

Nonplussed: Yeah, to all the listeners, you guys should definitely play the game again, so you get to see Shijie.

ImpureLily: also that bunny on the lantern because I fucking forgot about that I even like had like a reference photo set aside and everything

daisydiversions: Yeah, its probably okay

ImpureLily: i'm just like yeah I feel like i'm forgetting something yeah it's fine

ImpureLily: and then i'm watching Kictor like talking about the bunnies i'm like like reading the text and all that it's like oh shit

daisydiversions: What about you, Gav?

daisydiversions: Which, uh, which fiddly bit was your favorite?

Gavilan: I really liked the approval banners or whatever we ended up calling them.

Gavilan: We had a whole discussion about what we were going to call these things in the help menu as well.
Gavilan: We could not decide what they were.

Gavilan: But yeah, I think I really like how they came out and messing around with all the different colors.

daisydiversions: You know what?

daisydiversions: You're right.

daisydiversions: And I just continue to think of them as approval banners because that's the way we originally

daisydiversions: said they were.

ImpureLily: what did we even settle on okay yeah yeah yeah

Gavilan: I think it says approval notifications, I think, in the help page.

Gavilan: So I think we did end up landing on approval.

Nonplussed: Yeah.

Gavilan: But we talked about all different things we could call them.

Nonplussed: And it's funny what sticks because like, the name of the game, like, I think like in the original, I asked like people guys, what should we name this game?

Nonplussed: Right now that the name, like the draft name of it is Gusu Summer Camp Dating Sim. And like it just, we just never had a title that was not Gusu Summer Camp Dating Sim, all the way until now.

Nonplussed: It's just like, all right, this is the draft name, the like work in progress name of the game. And it's just sorry.

carriecmoney: never have a never have a working title because that's just the title that's that's just the title

daisydiversions: Yeah.

daisydiversions: I like it because I think it tells you that it's a light game, right?

daisydiversions: Like, it's not going to get into the serious dark issues that are explored in themes in

daisydiversions: the MDZS.

daisydiversions: Instead, it's just a summer camp.

ImpureLily: only hints at it a little oh I started giggling

carriecmoney: and it's not taking yourself too seriously either um although speaking of titles um I did not realize

daisydiversions: Right.

carriecmoney: until y'all see for the one that y'all were gonna call spat behind the scenes thing the weather report

carriecmoney: and it's perfect I love it you had to it's great

ImpureLily: that is probably one of my favorite running gags is the one I remember before I met any of y'all

carriecmoney: yeah I i will I will admit I did not actually play the game i'm not much of a gamer ironically enough um so most of my playing the experience playing

carriecmoney: experience is watching the streams that people did and when I saw the weather gag come back again and

carriecmoney: again I was like oh yeah that's good yeah we're just like no don't do

ImpureLily: Before I met any of y’all I found the game on a03 I was like oh that's cool and I bookmarked it I was like i'll

ImpureLily: play like later never did they came back and then you guys are mentioned I was like wait you

ImpureLily: guys did that oh shit and then like right before we started playing

Nonplussed: Yeah, I think the stream that you watch is probably Kictor's, right? Like it's, I know, it's so much fun watching Kictor's stream.

daisydiversions: The letter.

ImpureLily: she missed so much of the game it's almost impressive

daisydiversions: Yeah.

daisydiversions: Kictor.

daisydiversions: Her first playthrough, she really punted it just to try and find that secret romance

daisydiversions: and threw it all away.

daisydiversions: I was like, no, you were on track for the perfect.

daisydiversions: You could have gotten, you could have gotten Wen Qing on the first try.

daisydiversions: You could have gotten Lan xichen and then you just threw it all away.

daisydiversions: Oh, it was very fun.

daisydiversions: I enjoyed it a lot.

daisydiversions: But yeah, I knew it was funny.

Nonplussed: Like, yeah, like, I don't know about you guys, but there were definitely so many things about the game that felt surprising to me. Like, only watching Kickter's playthrough, like, even though I'm like, had made so much of the game, I was like, super surprised. Like, I did not think the weather joke was going to be really that funny. It was like, really very throwaway.

Nonplussed: Like watching Kickter's playthrough, be like, lol, okay, it was good.

daisydiversions: I mean I knew it was funny but yeah, it is one of those things where it's like, yeah, I think you play dating sims

daisydiversions: so you can feel something.

daisydiversions: And when I watched Kictor, even the playthrough where she wasn't achieving what she was hoping

daisydiversions: to achieve, I was like, that's it.

daisydiversions: We captured that energy.

daisydiversions: Because, yeah, when you're like, oh, no, like, that's what you play a dating sim for.

daisydiversions: Like, so, yeah, I was like, success.

ImpureLily: she was hilarious I was just I was just and the fact she like barely went back that much she was like good on you

daisydiversions: I know.

daisydiversions: Well, that's okay.

daisydiversions: She played a second time and got what she was looking for.

daisydiversions: So, Nonplusses, do you want to talk about it?

daisydiversions: Do you have a favorite thing that you made art-wise?

Nonplussed: Okay, I would say my favorite, I didn't make it, but like, my favorite thing is choosing the, because I did the background stuff, right? Choosing the Cornetto background, because I, before I had to pick Donghua background sprites, I had not watched the Donghua.

Nonplussed: So I was basically like, 2x-ing my way through the Donghua just to try any time there were no characters on screen. And I was like, pause, like not paying attention to what was happening. And I was like, wait, there's, there's a Cornetto ad? Like, what's happening here?

carriecmoney: oh you got to experience it in real time oh that's great

Nonplussed: I was like what is happening! And then I had to write in the cornetto The joke in like the last, absolutely last minute in the original game. This was like post, post the writing deadline. So like the pod figures had already started recording. And I was like, guys, guys, I just realized there's a Cornetto ad. Can I add it in? Like, you guys would have to record more things if that's okay with you.

Nonplussed: They were like, sure. Then I took the Cornetto background, which I think is a joke only I will get, which is why I'm explaining it now so that everyone else will get it that the background specifically for the shop is exact, says Cornetto in Chinese. Okay, guys, it's like literally that scene from the Donghua. I'm very pleased that we got to use it.

daisydiversions: Yeah.

daisydiversions: It was, it was, it was perfect.

daisydiversions: Yeah.

daisydiversions: You struggled a lot for that and it was worth it.

Nonplussed: I'm not an artist guy is like I had to like try to learn how to erase like the characters sitting in the corner of the screen at the Cornetto shop and like a bad job.
Nonplussed: It's like, okay, I need to pick I need to have this background. So yes, oh God, I'm like so bad at using the clone tool.

carriecmoney: oh yeah the clone tool is definitely um easy it looks like it's really easy to use

carriecmoney: and then you do it and it looks like ass and you're like but but

ImpureLily: yeah that's always a pain in the ass yeah and then you go too far start doing great things you

ImpureLily: don't want it to I was like stop it I didn't really do that yeah and it looks so pretty I think that

daisydiversions: It's like trying to, like, eat another part of your image and, like, paste it in.

daisydiversions: But then it, like, puts a weird artifact there and you just got to go clean it up.

carriecmoney: it's only as good as the part of the uh the image that you're trying to steal from

Gavilan: That's pretty cool.

Gavilan: That's more like actual visual art, digital art stuff than I have any idea how to do.

Gavilan: I just, I just put the cut and paste the assets over on top of each other and change the colors.

Gavilan: I don't, I don't like actually draw anything.

Nonplussed: A lot of the design work though, like, no, but like the design stuff, like, I don't know if like, if we could just show I don't know if you want to link this in the show notes.

Nonplussed: But like the the draft shit I gave you right off like, okay, I need like this, like the original relationship screen draft that I gave you like really trashy looking.

Nonplussed: And then what you've made of it, like, it's just that is art. That is artwork.

Gavilan: It's, it's graphic design.

Gavilan: So like the, the digital art stuff is so cool to me because I have no idea how to do any of that.

Gavilan: Like I am aware of the existence of a clone tool, but I've never touched a clone tool.

Gavilan: So I think all of that is really cool.

ImpureLily: should we like link some I remember I posted like a of um like sketches as the work in progress should

ImpureLily: we like put those on there

daisydiversions: We can link whatever you want.

ImpureLily: for funsies

Gavilan: Yeah, we could put the, the, the mock-up, the mock-up next, next to the final approvals page would be pretty funny.

daisydiversions: Yeah.

Gavilan: Because the mock-up was very funny.

Gavilan: But the thing about the mock-up is it gave me all of the information that I needed.

Gavilan: It's like, okay, you need to have this information.

Gavilan: Now figure out how to put that on a page.

Gavilan: And I was just so much of like moving stuff around.

Gavilan: What if I put it here?

Gavilan: What if I put it there?

Gavilan: What if I put this over here?

Gavilan: The banner was across the top and then it was across the bottom and then it was over in the corner.

Gavilan: And then, and for a while Mingjue was on top.

Gavilan: And then Nonplussed was like, wait, that looks like, it looks like Mingjue is the main character.

Gavilan: Can we flip him?

Gavilan: So I put him on the bottom and put the relationship thing on the top.

Gavilan: And just like all of this, like juggling of things, but like the mock-up had all of the information.

Gavilan: This is what you need to, what it needs to contain.

Gavilan: Now go make it look pretty, which is exactly what a mock-up needs.

Gavilan: It needs like, this is what you need.

daisydiversions: Yeah, yeah.

Nonplussed: Yeah. Whereas like when the I think it's really cool.

Nonplussed: I think people might find it really cool to see like what I gave like Carrie for the sprites like Carrie mostly like in the first game, especially the which makes the like where a lot of them our main sprites come from.

Nonplussed: I only gave you like a one word description. I was just like Jiang Cheng angry. Jiang Cheng rage. Like that was it.

carriecmoney: yeah I know what that boy looks like when he's mad

carriecmoney: yeah and yeah there was like minor tweaking to fit the actual like words when you actually like

carriecmoney: start plugging it in oh that one's too angry you know something like that um

carriecmoney: but um and yeah and then I think there's a lot more like okay like now that we like with the dlc

carriecmoney: there's a lot more like can we like add an extra angry you know that's a little bit more but a little

carriecmoney: bit and just for like those kind of variants in there um

Nonplussed: Yeah, I think I had a statistic. I don't know if you've mentioned that, like the number of sprites we have in the game, like to make a game this expressive.

Nonplussed: I think we had like 100 something

Carriecmoney: that checks out

Nonplussed: not. Yes, like a huge number just to make the game this expressive.

carriecmoney: actually have this all in like a separate folder and like my art stuff on my computer because

Nonplussed: There's probably more sprites than you have in the game itself.

carriecmoney: yeah yeah but it's a baseline and it's got there's 109 items in my folder and that includes like the

carriecmoney: photoshop files and the cover art and stuff like that um so yeah it's probably in the 120 range um

Nonplussed: Nonplussed: Yeah, I think I've got the trivia. There are a total of 342 art assets in the game.

Nonplussed: Characters right there are 159.

Nonplussed: And yeah, and then like for the relationship screen alone.

Nonplussed: It's 64s.

Gavilan: Pages 35 to 90 in my thing.

Gavilan: And that's just the heart.

Nonplussed: Fun fact.

Gavilan: Many little bit.

carriecmoney: the hearts the hearts are like that um I think there's like a asset and like maybe

carriecmoney: it's like team fortress 2 or some game like that that's like a worm and it's got like a thousand

carriecmoney: polys on it like that's the relationship uh page for this game

daisydiversions: So, if you could transmigrate back in time and do it all over again, what, if anything,

daisydiversions: would you guys all change?

daisydiversions: Mmm.

Carriecmoney: I’d make the characters different heights. um because I i was doing it like I was trying to make them all like feel the same and so they're

carriecmoney: literally all the same height I just when I was drawing a new guy like I literally would like trace

carriecmoney: over I think I was using uh Zhan Cheng face you know and so like I would trace like the face shape

carriecmoney: or whatever is like the initial sketch that I would keep them all in the same like spot on the sprite

carriecmoney: art or whatever and I kind of thought in my head that like you know while it was being developed

carriecmoney: maybe you'd move one of them up or down like 10 pixels that didn't happen and that's fine but um

carriecmoney: I probably would make them different heights on purpose

daisydiversions: Nonplussed is already having a heart attack thinking about how to do that.

Nonplussed: They have to be exact.

carriecmoney: i would move up the character in the art and draw like a little bit more at the bottom you know like they would be

Nonplussed: Yeah.

carriecmoney: physically like the the file would be the same size I would just move the guy up in the space yeah

Nonplussed: Yeah.

carriecmoney: because there's a decent amount of white space between the guy and the top of the field that it

Nonplussed: True.

daisydiversions: Make it some meng yao. you only see, like, a sliver of his forehead over the bar.

carriecmoney: yeah it wouldn’t be a lot it would be yeah it would be like 15 20 pixels max up and down you know but especially when there's like five of them in a row and they're all the same height it's

carriecmoney: like what is this a girl group like they're not they're not they're not they didn't audition and

carriecmoney: picked because they were all five seven you know yeah

Gavilan: The beauty standards are pretty narrow. They are all unusually tall.

Gavilan: And they do, in fact, all look a bit alike.

Gavilan: Not so bad in The Untamed.

Gavilan: Some of the shows are so similar.

carriecmoney: and I would probably I probably would because there was a little bit of um you know uh appendix leftover detritus kind of stuff of me

carriecmoney: starting to draw them all at just to head height and then being like ah I need to draw the forearms

carriecmoney: and the waist um I probably would like you know do that on purpose and then I would

carriecmoney: do more with their hands below you know um to start with and so I wasn't necessarily tied to like

carriecmoney: if this didn't have the dialogue boxes on top of it most of the time the bottoms will look kind of

carriecmoney: funky honestly like you only really see them in like the transitions and stuff like that so it's not

carriecmoney: really that obvious but some of them are kind of awkward looking

daisydiversions: Lily, what about you?

daisydiversions: What would you, what would you change?

ImpureLily: now that I have like a bit more skill and well one I would write down actually like some of the steps

ImpureLily: I would do because I wanted to go do like the last one I was like what the fuck did I do this again

ImpureLily: every artist relates to that shit uh probably like redraw the first couple ones that I did

ImpureLily: so because I have a bit more skill and also maybe give myself more time instead of being like yeah i

ImpureLily: got time and then procrastinating a tiny bit

daisydiversions: What about you, Gav?

Gavilan: Definitely with you on the starting earlier, not procrastinating. I think I would, if I could go back, I'd love to have gotten involved on the first game.

Gavilan: Because I'd be curious to see what upgrades I would have done on the second game if I had done this on the first game.

Nonplussed: True.

Nonplussed: Oh, God.

Nonplussed: Yeah.

ImpureLily: maybe persuade you all to make a kissing scene to have …

Daisydiversions: Maybe in the next game!

ImpureLily: uh even though like I know we kind of discussed it a little bit at the beginning but have a Jiang Cheng slash like Lan Wangji instead of just

ImpureLily: hated because a lot of people are asking for that as well like I feel like honestly added that like

Nonplussed: Yeah.

Nonplussed: Oh, yeah.

daisydiversions: Yeah.

daisydiversions: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nonplussed: That was fun.

daisydiversions: That, that was the most requested thing.

daisydiversions: Really surprised about that.

ImpureLily: there's also like some like Wei Wuxian as well but like there's a lot with like Lan Wangji as well it's like

Nonplussed: Yes.

ImpureLily: maybe we fucking should.

carriecmoney: it wasfunny when he was not when he just didn't like you that they were like but what if I want him to like

daisydiversions: Yeah.

Impurelily: yes enemies to lovers instead of enemies to like extreme rivals or vice versa

carriecmoney: oh yeah that um the two sprites that I have for him um the normal and the horny grip the horny grip

carriecmoney: was unfortunately mostly covered by the dialogue box and so like there was a little bit it was like

carriecmoney: you know a stronger grip and like a shaking hand thing and that's mostly underneath the dialogue box

carriecmoney: like there's a little bit on the face but um yeah it wasn't super obvious which is sad yeah it's

ImpureLily: we missed his horny grip.

carriecmoney: yeah its literally lwj underscore horny is the name

daisydiversions: And what about you, Nonplussed?

daisydiversions: Is there anything else you would change about the art?

Nonplussed: I mean, I'm really glad that like, in the expanded edition, you guys took the UI off my hands because the UI in the first game is really trash guys.

Nonplussed: I'm really glad you guys.

daisydiversions: I thought it looked Great.

Nonplussed: but like in the expanded edition we have like, hmm?

daisydiversions: Looks better now, though.

daisydiversions: Looks better now, but it looked great in the beginning.

Nonplussed: Yes.

daisydiversions: Yeah.

Nonplussed: I mean, I love our little text box and like, you know, all the screens that we have, like, I don't know.

Nonplussed: Do we mention the text box yet?

Nonplussed: Like the, the like little Lily, um, um, Lotus, sorry, uh, purple flower thing on our text box and like how it, how it, um, it looks similar to the, the Qixi number box and the color of the like menu choices and things like that.

Nonplussed: Like it all looks so pretty like now compared to the first game.

daisydiversions: Yeah, it definitely got an upgrade.

ImpureLily: I just remembered how you were asking like hey that paper texture how did you just like I set you a file like why is it

ImpureLily: black it's like oh you have to do all these steps never mind that's for you sorry i'm like three hours

ImpureLily: asleep my brain's not working here you go.

daisydiversions: Lily, we love you.

Nonplussed: Yeah.

Nonplussed: A lot of it looks so much prettier now.

Gavilan: I know, I remember you asked, you asked if I could make a text box.

Gavilan: And I looked at your text box and I said, well, most of my Canva graphics are about that level.

Gavilan: So I can give you a different text box, but it's not going to be a better text box.

Gavilan: So it's much better off having someone actually draw a custom one for that.

Nonplussed: Like, I think it's, you don't realize the tiny like design graphic design details until someone does something that makes it better.

Nonplussed: And you're like, Oh, of course.

Nonplussed: Cause like with the text box, like, because the flower is in the center of the screen, it makes it less ugly that like the name of the character and then the dialogue, right?

Nonplussed: Like there's always this big space after the name of the character, but like that's now taken up by like a flower.

Nonplussed: So the, the dialogue doesn't look so unbalanced when you have a character talking versus if you have the narrator talking and there's no name.

Nonplussed: It doesn't, the dialogue doesn't look so unbalanced.

Nonplussed: So like, I thought like that was like such a neat tiny detail.

Nonplussed: Yeah.

ImpureLily: That was totally my intended purpose, not just to make it look pretty. because I think I threw like a bunch of ideas here like that one i'm like okay it's always the

Nonplussed: Yeah.

Nonplussed: That one worked really well.

Gavilan: I know when I was making the letter, I had a really hard time making one that would fill the whole screen.

Nonplussed: Yeah.

Gavilan: They were all like that 4 by 5 ratio, not the 16 by 9 ratio.

Gavilan: So I ended up cutting it in half and then spreading it out and then meeting them, joining them in the middle.

Gavilan: So they're each, it's like two, two thirds of it joined in the middle to make it long enough.

Gavilan: So like I spread it out.

Gavilan: I'm sure there is a much better like, actual way to do that, but that is my way to do that.

ImpureLily: listen, that’s always the case

carriecmoney: every single piece of tech there is jerry-rigged by somebody and like we'll fix it later and later never ever comes

Gavilan: The middle occurs twice. The middle of this original picture occurs twice, basically.

Gavilan: And then just trying to get it to line up so that there's no visible seam in the middle.

Gavilan: So fiddly.

Gavilan: But now it's 16 by 9.

Gavilan: It fills the whole screen now because I just could not find one.

daisydiversions: Yeah, the way I kind of tweaked the code on, like, the credit scene to get the spacing between the different lines to be exactly the way I wanted it to be is also not the prettiest code that's ever existed.

daisydiversions: But it looks fine for the person who's playing it, and that's the most important thing.

carriecmoney: all all code is that joke about like the embroidery and your side um you know when you turn

carriecmoney: over the embroidery hoop

daisydiversions: Oh, mm-hmm.

Nonplussed: Yeah.

Gavilan: Yep.

Nonplussed: Yeah.

Impurelily: Don’t look at the layers, dont look at the code.

Nonplussed: Code is so ugly.

daisydiversions: And, yeah, if there's one art thing I could have added, it would have been having a sprite with Jiang Cheng face palming.

daisydiversions: One of the sprites that you added for the Expanded was Jiang Cheng rolling his eyes, and it was so good, and I probably overused that one.

daisydiversions: But if I could have done a Jiang Cheng rolling his eyes and then face palming, my life would have been made.

Impurelily: Wei Wuxian enters screen, facepalm. It’s like, automatic.

daisydiversions: Like, Wei Wuxian runs out of the screen after Lan Wangji eye roll, face palming.

Nonplussed: Like this is the fun part about like, I guess this part that's different about making a game versus like, you know, doing a regular big bang where like the art is the text.

Nonplussed: Right.

Nonplussed: It's like, I might tell you, okay, I would love to have like angry and raging and then like only after you put it with the text or like the plot figures voice.

Nonplussed: Sometimes when they voice it, it sounds different from what I thought it would be when I wrote it.

Nonplussed: So now it doesn't quite match the art.

Nonplussed: And then we'll go back to the artist and be like, Oh, could you change the sprite to be like this, like that?

Nonplussed: And like that, like iteration, iteration.

Nonplussed: There's a lot of interations.

ImpureLily: That was a thing I was actually worried about like yeah is like is he supposed to be angry right now, I think so

Daisydiversions: It’s Jiang Cheng, so.

ImpureLily: context clue says yes.

Gavilan: Generally a good guess. How is Jiang Cheng feeling?

ImpureLily: that was also fun like drawing him it's like okay he's a grumpy grumpy grape but he's in love

ImpureLily: so he's a grumpy grape and love so like that's a fun balance of like okay I can't make him look too

Nonplussed: Yeah.

ImpureLily: cheery because he's grumpy but like just a little smirk it's never like with um during the sword fight i

Nonplussed: Yeah.

ImpureLily: figures like nah he's smiling this is a good one

Nonplussed: That's why this ...

ImpureLily: and like me and like Nie Huaisang just like he's like trying so hard not to smile right now don't be afraid to copy paste because apparently people don't

Daisydiversions: Yeah one of the expressions that we added, or sets of expressions we added was angry blush, which I think really helped bring the angry grape vibes

daisydiversions: Okay, so for anybody who's listening, who's thinking about making their own fan game, is there any advice that you'd give them on the art side for these types of projects?

Carriecmoney: make it so simple. Don’t try to make hades.

daisydiversions: Mm-hmm, yeah.

Carriecmoney: like super giant like i'm not super giant uh um you can always make them more detailed once you get all the basics

carriecmoney: down but you want to go for that minimum viable product um where you've got a game at all steps

carriecmoney: and then if you get through all of it and you still have time and energy to make more art or make

carriecmoney: it you know more detailed or add kind of other things and you can do with it but the goal is to make

carriecmoney: a game that is step one

daisydiversions: The only supergiant in this game is Nie Mingjue.

Carriecmoney: exactly.

ImpureLily: Don’t be afraid to copy paste because people don’t notice at all.

carriecmoney: no no not at all yeah no um work smarter not harder 100 right right

daisydiversions: It's copy and paste your own work, right?

daisydiversions: Like, don't steal anybody else's.

ImpureLily: that is what I mean. like that 90 percent of Jiang Cheng has been copying a paste

daisydiversions: What about you, Gav? Do you have any advice for anybody out there thinking about making their own game?

Gavilan: I don't, because I have no idea what Nonplussed does to turn my graphics into playable things.

Gavilan: I hand them to you and you turn them into magic.

Gavilan: I have no idea.

Gavilan: I have no advice because I don't know how any of this works.

Gavilan: I just make the little things and then Nonplussed does magic.

daisydiversions: Well, the little things are perfect.

Gavilan: I only see the finished embroidery side.

Gavilan: I don't see the, I have no idea how the underside works.

ImpureLily: you just hand the yarn

Gavilan: Yeah, I make, I exactly, I make the yarn.

Gavilan: I spin the yarn.

Gavilan: I hand it to Nonplussed and it becomes embroidery.

Gavilan: I have no idea how it, how it works on the back end.

Nonplussed: So funny.

Nonplussed: you think that because I think the exact same, but like in the other direction where I'm like, I had Gav like they're like rubbed like the rubbish yarn that I really want.

Nonplussed: And then like Gav comes back to me with like this beautiful, like already designed relationship screen.

Nonplussed: I'm like, perfect.

Nonplussed: And everything.

Nonplussed: Yeah.

Nonplussed: Like file, like the titles are all already correct.

Nonplussed: So I can just plug in the code and then boom, it works.

Nonplussed: So good.

Gavilan: Yeah.

Nonplussed: So.

Gavilan: But the plug in the code step, you say that as a single sentence, but like that is a whole

Gavilan: black box to me.

Gavilan: I don't know how any of that works.

Gavilan: You hand me the, so if we're continuing the metaphor, right, like you hand me the fiber,

Gavilan: right, the wool, and then I spin it into the yarn and then you embroider it.

daisydiversions: Nonplussed hands you the sheep.

daisydiversions: Use this one.

Gavilan: A whole sheep.

Gavilan: Sure, sure, sure.

Gavilan: And then I shear it and card it and spin it.

Gavilan: But I don't know how the embroidering step works.

Gavilan: So I can't give any advice on the embroidering step.
daisydiversions: Was there anything on the carding and shearing part that you want to share, Canva?

Gavilan: I gave you guys, the tip, right, which is you can, you can label your canvas slides and they

Gavilan: will download us the file names.

Gavilan: That is, that is generally the best thing as far as like iterations, anything where you're

Gavilan: doing 5 million pages of something, it's really helpful.

Gavilan: You only have to label it once.

ImpureLily: Should I have labeled my art?

daisydiversions: It's too late now, Lily.

ImpureLily: because I just kind of like threw it at you guys

daisydiversions: It's too late to ask this question now.

ImpureLily: no it is but like I didn't even think about that should I have

carriecmoney: I label so like I have my just sort of consistent this is how I do all of my art

carriecmoney: stuff um if we were not just doing audio I would do a little screen share maybe i'll do it some other

carriecmoney: time walk through my photoshop file for how this worked but um I have like a folder in my photoshop

carriecmoney: file guy and then um each sometimes I did name the layers when I want like it because there's a bunch

carriecmoney: of them for some of them and I want to be able to quickly like toggle between like the talk ones and

carriecmoney: things like that when I was doing the refining um but i'm also really bad at not doing that I don't

carriecmoney: need to um uh one more going back to the original question um one more piece of advice that I would

carriecmoney: give i'm also like in professional development spaces in my day job um so one other piece of advice

carriecmoney: is get people to play it as early as possible um get testers in there as quickly as you can

Nonplussed: Yeah.

carriecmoney: and get them to do it get your friends to like click through it and point out problems because it's

carriecmoney: much easier to fix problems as soon as if you catch them really early than if you catch them at the very

Nonplussed: Yeah.

carriecmoney: last minute I know i'm sure we did but yeah for sure yeah these are acceptance testing

ImpureLily: and I feel like we did because there was only like a handful of bugs I know like

ImpureLily: Nie Huaisang I think that art piece didn't show up in the gallery one other bug maybe or that we

ImpureLily: needed to see oh god what's this button do I like uh once again new ones aren't like his uh heart

Nonplussed: Oh, we didn't catch.

Nonplussed: It's true.

Nonplussed: I think the thing about QA is that QA is a skin, right?

Nonplussed: So asking your friends to do QA and playing through it, they might not know how detailed, you know, nitty gritty you want to get like in terms of QA.

Nonplussed: Like when I said I want to explore every dialogue option, I really do mean like click all the choices.

Nonplussed: And, and like, you know, also in fandom nowadays, we're not as used to giving like critique.

Nonplussed: So like, it's a big problem with QA where people will only flag up big errors.

Nonplussed: They may not flag up small things.

Nonplussed: So yeah, that, that is, that's something that, yeah, would be cool to have.

Nonplussed: Like if you could get people to do QA and like kind of set an expectation of what actually you would like, what would be really helpful.

Nonplussed: A lot of feedback, like more, always more feedback is always helpful.

Nonplussed: So.

daisydiversions: I think a specific list of the things you're looking for also helps, right?

Nonplussed: Yeah.

daisydiversions: Because I think especially if you're in fandom, yeah, people will be like, oh, I'm just looking for any, like, spelling errors.

daisydiversions: But if it's, like, no, I want to see if, like, anything weird happens on the screen or if, like, I don't know, like, like, the character exit and entrances were something that I was, like, very new at.

daisydiversions: And so I was, like, very much trying to, like, look to see if I was doing it naturally.

daisydiversions: But if you're just playing the game, you're probably not actually noticing, right?

daisydiversions: So if you have those, like, specific things or if it's, like, does this feel rewarding, you know, does this particular storyline feel rewarding, right?

Nonplussed: Yeah.

daisydiversions: Or how long did it take you to play the game?

daisydiversions: I think that helps kind of guide the play testers a little bit if they're not used to doing it.

Nonplussed: Yeah.

Nonplussed: Yeah.

Nonplussed: Cause like, for instance, one thing pre and post play testing this time around, we did different was initially the approval banners were just supposed to be in the center of the screen, right?

Nonplussed: Um, and then I, I think one of my friends who was play testing was like, Oh, well it kind of flashes a bit too fast.

Nonplussed: And then like, it would really feel more, it would feel better if it was hovering over the person who is approving or disapproving.

Nonplussed: So then like you, I would have like, I went back and like recoded all the approvals to hover over the character in question.

Nonplussed: And like, I think that was like a better choice.

Nonplussed: So like you only catch these things when new eyes come and play tests.

Nonplussed: So.

carriecmoney: yes there's um there's a joke that i've heard several times in like the tester qa space that's

carriecmoney: like um you know a tester walks into a bar and orders one drink orders 999 drinks orders negative one

carriecmoney: drinks orders a lizard orders a key smash the first customer walks into the bar and asks where the

carriecmoney: bathroom is and the bar explodes um so you you can test internally with your own team all day long

Nonplussed: That's exactly.

carriecmoney: but you really external representation of people that have not been ingrained in this forever

Nonplussed: Yeah.

carriecmoney: to be like where's the bathroom

Nonplussed: Yes.

Nonplussed: The number things that I changed after watching Kictor's playthrough, also mangoes playthrough like I did change things because they, you suddenly spot error.

Nonplussed: When they play it.

ImpureLily: nie huaisang’s heart approval showing up earlier yeah

Nonplussed: Things like that.

Nonplussed: Yeah.

Nonplussed: Exactly what Carrie said about like make us the minimal viable game, right?

Nonplussed: Like, I don't know for any of y'all, when you first signed up, did y'all realize you would be making that many art assets?

carriecmoney: yeah I did. I did expect that much. There’s a bunch of little variance um I probably should have made a whole lot more honestly but um but yeah

ImpureLily: I thought I was gonna make the ending splashes and the ones in the middle of the game as well so actually I made less than I thought I was going to make because then we got

ImpureLily: more help

Gavilan: Yeah.

Gavilan: And like I said, I said, oh, UI seems like a canvas thing.

Gavilan: I had no idea what I was going to, what, what, what that even entailed.

Gavilan: But like the stuff you were talking about was like text box and banners and, and fonts.

Gavilan: And I'm like, yeah, I know those things.

ImpureLily: it's like yes that's a word I know

Gavilan: That seems like, like a way that I can get involved that does not involve me podficking

Gavilan: while moving house.

daisydiversions: So for listener questions, so the first one is from Alex.

daisydiversions: So he asks, what was your favorite part of making the game?

ImpureLily: I like like seeing people's ideas bounce back and forth with the little inside jokes and like especially like in the channels so it's a lot

ImpureLily: like seeing like behind the scenes like people like their ideas and like see what's happening

ImpureLily: like working or not it was fun to be like a part of that

Gavilan: Yeah.

Gavilan: I agree.

Gavilan: It was fun to, um, to, to see like what I love seeing.

Gavilan: I love seeing the final embroidery project.

Gavilan: Like, this is what it turns into.

Gavilan: It's like, huh, neat.

Gavilan: That's why I have all of those buttons.

Gavilan: Then they do that.

Gavilan: That was cool.

Gavilan: I really like watching the gallery turn into an actual gallery.

Gavilan: That was neat.

Gavilan: It's like now there are, now there are, now there's beautiful art in the gallery.

Gavilan: I don't know how that happened.

Gavilan: That's really cool.

carriecmoney: yeah seeing the sprites get used is kind of like you know if you um if someone like gets your art like

carriecmoney: they buy it or whatever and then they send you a picture of it hanging up on their wall pin board or

carriecmoney: something like oh it's in use congratulations thank you um so yeah um seeing it actually getting used

carriecmoney: um was is like oh they are all the same height aren't they um I i do actually like like not to be

carriecmoney: self-centered but I do like the little art style like every time I do a project like where it's like

carriecmoney: i'm doing a bunch of things all together for a specific thing like I feel like I do like a slightly

carriecmoney: different way of like coloring it or setting up the file or something like that um and this one

carriecmoney: turned out like I think like the actual like you know character art it it looks good and it looks

carriecmoney: good in a way that's easy for me to like add another guy or something like that it's not like a hard art

carriecmoney: style but it still like functions well and it doesn't look it doesn't look cheap

Gavilan: Look, the sprites are really good.

Nonplussed: It fit the game, like, not just the fact that you need so many of them, right?

Nonplussed: Like, it's so expressive.

Nonplussed: It fits the, like, tone of the game, like, lighthearted and like, you know, kind of average, like, really well.

Nonplussed: And I love seeing how it all comes together.

Nonplussed: Like, you guys talked about, like, the process of behind the scenes and seeing people work together.

Nonplussed: I feel like, of all fandom projects, this one is the most collaborative I've ever been in.

Nonplussed: You really need to, like, go back and forth.

Nonplussed: There's so many people so many other things, which is really cool.

daisydiversions: So was there a scene you all wanted to have as an image but couldn’t do it so any kind of splash art you wanted to add. And this was asked by absolutelymango who is one of the twitch streamers who streamed the game

Carriecmoney: I wanted a Yanli arc.

carriecmoney: where's my girl

ImpureLily: I wanted kissy. like at first I was like oh should I draw them kissing then i'm like rereading like

ImpureLily: I said to Nonplussed like something like then so I was like okay give me an idea what they're doing

ImpureLily: I was like wow nobody nobody's uh locking lips are they damn it

daisydiversions: Next time. What about you, Gav, was there anything you wanted to see added in terms of splash art.

Gavilan: Uh, no, I, I think they're all super cool.

Gavilan: I think, I think it's really fun.

Gavilan: Yeah.

Gavilan: I can't think of anything in particular that I'd want to be added.

Gavilan: It's a good story.

Gavilan: I would be happy to see the kissing though.

Gavilan: Kissing is always fun.

Gavilan: That would be fun.

daisydiversions: And then also from Absolutely Mango.

daisydiversions: So did you plan the sprite expressions before or after the writing?

carriecmoney: um I do believe it was mostly written without without you know with like random extra little things when

carriecmoney: non gave me the sprite list

Nonplussed: Yes.

Nonplussed: So I basically had the whole script written before I ask a list from Carrie.

Nonplussed: And then, like, we go back and forth a little bit.

Nonplussed: Once I get the sprite, we put it in the game.

Nonplussed: And then I'm like, hmm, could we change a little bit more?

Nonplussed: And then we go back and forth a little bit.

Nonplussed: But yeah, writing does come first.

daisydiversions: And then they asked as a follow-up, were the text boxes or sprites created first or were they developed at the same time?

Carriecmoney: um sprites came first but we did have an idea like the sort of standard for like ren pies like format of this is how big they are this is how

carriecmoney: this is these are the ways you can vary it and things like that but the specific assets came

Nonplussed: Yeah, you kind of need to know the exact size of your text box to tell the sprite artist how much of their sprite is visible.

Nonplussed: So, like, that sort of basic stuff.

daisydiversions: And then this one's for you, Nonplussed.

daisydiversions: How much time was spent on going through episodes to find the perfect backgrounds to use?

Nonplussed: Oh, god.

Nonplussed: So, too much time.

Nonplussed: I think, okay, in fairness, I have not watched the Donghua before.

Nonplussed: So, that's on me.

Nonplussed: But yeah.

Nonplussed: Actually, Daisy, you want to find, like, a couple of the Caiyi backgrounds as well, right?

daisydiversions: Yeah.

Nonplussed: So, you know how long it takes.

daisydiversions: Yeah.

daisydiversions: I mean, but I've watched the season one of the Donghua like many times.

daisydiversions: So for me, it wasn't such a labor because I was like, I know exactly the scene that they're there.

daisydiversions: And then I was just able to kind of go through.

daisydiversions: And I actually picked out more backgrounds than I ended up using.

daisydiversions: So for me, the season one of the Donghua is very close to my heart.

daisydiversions: So it was a joy to revisit it.

Nonplussed: Depending on whether you've watched the Donghua before and how much you love it, this can be a long time.

Nonplussed: It can take a long time or a very short time.

carriecmoney: and it is very annoying like they never released like the background images or anything as like their own

carriecmoney: art so you did have to actually go through the thing to do it you couldn't just look them up

ImpureLily: they’re pretty

daisydiversions: And then from Absolutely Mango as well, was there anything y'all wanted to add on the art side that was kind of beyond the scope of the game otherwise?

daisydiversions: So not just splash art, but anything.

carriecmoney: drawing the backgrounds yeah that would have that would have ballooned to the scope of the art

Nonplussed: Yeah.

carriecmoney: for the for the game um I mean as much as we were just complaining about how laborious it was to go

daisydiversions: Yeah.

Nonplussed: Yes.

carriecmoney: through the show it is still easier than drawing and I do think it looked better honestly I think it

Nonplussed: Yes.

Nonplussed: Oh, yes.

carriecmoney: would look better than any background I could have drawn for sure yes absolutely

ImpureLily: I was able to do it a little bit with the flickering lights but I think like having like hair or clothes

ImpureLily: movement like would it also like really I feel like if I had more time and a little more scale

ImpureLily: I probably could have pulled that off

daisydiversions: I think we would have had to have at least one additional artist to just do backgrounds.

daisydiversions: Possibly two.

carriecmoney: absolutely mm-hmm I know that's something that when I was first pulled on we talked about I was like i'm

carriecmoney: gonna focus on sprites because that's more important if you get another person to do the

carriecmoney: backgrounds that's great again I did get like halfway through like potentially drawing one and I was

carriecmoney: just kind of like I didn't I got to like the sketch point I didn't get very far but I was kind

carriecmoney: of looking at it and thinking about how but I was just like I don't think the sprites are going to stand

carriecmoney: out because they're going to be too similar you know and the backgrounds are not going to like if

carriecmoney: I did the backgrounds in the same kind of like visual style as the sprites like they wouldn't

carriecmoney: be interesting enough like they wouldn't have enough depth they wouldn't have enough detail

carriecmoney: and the sprites in the background would just kind of blend together so they did need to kind of

carriecmoney: contrast.

daisydiversions: Yeah.

daisydiversions: That makes a lot of sense.

daisydiversions: Yeah.

daisydiversions: The contrasting art styles, I think, did help to make it pop out a little bit more.

daisydiversions: So that's cool.

Nonplussed: we wanted to make actual, like, more minigame stuff.

Nonplussed: That would have required so much art assets and, like, holding time.

Nonplussed: So, that would have been something cool.

ImpureLily: i feel like the letter is a type of mini game in itself

daisydiversions: The Gift Shop is a mini game.

ImpureLily: true the gift shop is a mini game

daisydiversions: Yeah.

daisydiversions: We talked a lot about mini games.

daisydiversions: Do you want to talk a little bit more about what we were planning on Nonplussed?

daisydiversions: Or do you want to save up for another?

Nonplussed: We'll save it.

daisydiversions: Okay.

carriecmoney: you gotta keep people wanting more

daisydiversions: Yeah.

daisydiversions: So one more question from the listeners.

daisydiversions: So AbsolutelyMango asked, can I eat your art?

ImpureLily: uh absolutely mango uh asked for the background for the lantern

ImpureLily: scene to like kind of make your own kissing scene so if anybody else like wants to do that

ImpureLily: fucking go for it i'm willing to like just like credit me for like the background that I made and like

ImpureLily: doodle away I just want to see the results yes also like living vicariously through them

daisydiversions: Okay.

daisydiversions: I'll link it in the show notes.

Gavilan: That's like, cause like when I think like, when I read a fic that I want to eat, I podfic it.

Gavilan: So I literally put it in my mouth.

Nonplussed: Yeah.

daisydiversions: Yeah.

Gavilan: So it's like, well, how do you, how do you do that with art?

Gavilan: Well, you get that.

Gavilan: So that's a great way to do it with art, right?

Gavilan: You take the backdrop and you draw your own version.

Gavilan: You doodle on it.

Gavilan: You're, you are eating the art, right?

Gavilan: You are, you are putting it in your mouth.

daisydiversions: Yeah.

Gavilan: I like with podfic cause you are literally putting it in your mouth.

Nonplussed: Mm.

daisydiversions: Yeah.

ImpureLily: then i'm also like living vicariously through them because they're drawing uh the kissing that

ImpureLily: I didn't get to do is like yes do it yes fan fiction of the game do it

Gavilan: That's it.

Gavilan: That's a good, good thought.

daisydiversions: Is somebody in the first episode was also asking for, like, additional poly endings?

daisydiversions: And it's like, oh, just make your own on our background.

Gavilan: There we go.

carriecmoney: make a fan fiction of the fan fiction

Gavilan: Yeah.

daisydiversions: Yeah.

Gavilan: Yes.

Gavilan: Recursive fandom.

daisydiversions: I, this is a little off topic, but I just filled out my Yuletide sign up today, the last

daisydiversions: day.

daisydiversions: And I saw that there were people who had nominated a bunch of, like, interactive fiction and stuff

daisydiversions: like that.

daisydiversions: And I was like, oh, I wonder if anybody would ever nominate our game.

daisydiversions: Like, that would be fun.

Gavilan: We could nominate our game.

daisydiversions: Yeah.

Gavilan: Well, at least one of the fics nominated was nominated by the author.

daisydiversions: Oh, well, maybe next year.

Gavilan: We can nominate the game and have people can write fic based on the game.

daisydiversions: Yeah.

Gavilan: Can draw art based on the game.

Nonplussed: That would be so cute, Yanli gets a girlfriend.

Nonplussed: Just be, like, a game.

Gavilan: The Gusu dating sim.

Gavilan: The Gusu summer camp dating sim universe.

daisydiversions: Yeah.

ImpureLily: No matter what, both Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng hearts black.

carriecmoney: yep the hunt for bush

Gavilan: We were joking at one point about her romancing the waterborne abyss.

daisydiversions: That was my, yeah, I was like, yeah, that has to be a romanceable character, the Waterborne

daisydiversions: Abyss.

daisydiversions: They, them pronouns.

ImpureLily: like I think it was also brought up like maybe wen ning wen ning being like a possible romance option

Nonplussed: Yeah.
ImpureLily: too for uh Jiang Cheng boy needs love

daisydiversions: Okay.

daisydiversions: So that's it for the listener questions in this episode.

daisydiversions: If you have questions for us that you'd like answered in future episodes, you can comment

daisydiversions: on the AO3 post or complete the Google form in the show notes.

daisydiversions: Thank you to everyone who supported our game and was curious enough to listen to this episode.

daisydiversions: So thank you, Nonplussed, Carrie, Lily, and Gav for joining me on the weather report.

Carriecmoney: I love that name.

daisydiversions: See you next time.

daisydiversions: Yeah.

daisydiversions: Enjoy that unseasonably warm weather in Gusu.

Carriecmoney: The weather is great.